Decree to Rebuild the Temple by Cyrus II
As Ezra-Nehemiah use Tishri years, even for the kings of Persia, and Daniel also employs Tishri years that is the convention followed below.
Ruler | Regnal Year | BCE (Ti/Ti Reckoning) | Event |
Cyrus II (539-530) | Accession | 539 | Fall of Babylon to Cyrus (October 9, 539 BCE). Cyrus’ accession year). |
Accession | 539 | On October 29, 539 BCE, Cyrus appointed his 62 year old general Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, governor over the conquered Chaldean kingdom. Darius the Mede, who was made ruler (Daniel 9:1) was known as Gobryas (Herodotus, The Histories 1.191); (Herodotus, 1920) and Gubaru (Whitcomb, 1959, p. 11). | |
Accession | 539 | On November 6, 539 BCE, Cyrus’ general Ugbaru, who engineered the capture of Babylon, died of a sudden fatal illness. (Archer, 1985, p. 76). The implication is that God provided special encouragement and protection to Darius, which evidently included the divine removal of a dangerous rival, through the agency of the archangel Gabriel (Daniel 11:1). | |
Accession | 539/538 | Timeframe of Daniel 9. In the first year of Governor Darius, Daniel comes to realize that with the fall of the Babylonian empire (Jeremiah 25:11-12) the time had come for God to bring the Jews back to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29:10) as the 70 years were complete (Daniel 9:2). Deeply moved, Daniel humbled himself and implored God in prayer and fasting to forgive the Jews and to restore Jerusalem (Daniel 9:3-19). In response, Gabriel appears and tells him of seventy weeks and the anointed prince [The Seventy Weeks Prophecy] (Daniel 9:24-27). | |
1st | 538/7 | Cyrus issues a proclamation for the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-2). Throughout Cyrus’ reign the Samaritans harassed the Jews and hired counselors against them. | |
3rd | 536/535 | Timeframe of Daniel 10-12. Daniel told of coming events by angel (unidentified but probably Gabriel again). | |
5th | 533 | The 70 years of captivity ended Elul 29, 3228 (September 19, 533 BCE) as the burnt offerings resumed after the return of the first Jewish refugees to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel. 603/602 BCE – 70 years = 533/532 BCE | |
6th | 533 | On Tishri 1, 3229 AM (September 20, 533 BCE), the altar in Jerusalem then being rebuilt, the priests again offered burnt offerings to the Lord (Ezra 3:1-6). The Sabbatical year and Jubilee count began anew initiating the New Cycle. | |
9th | 530 | Death of Cyrus II on December 4, 530 BCE. | |
Cambyses II (530-522) | Accession | 530 | Rebuilding of the Temple stopped until the second year of Darius I. The second son of Cyrus II assassinated by his brother Cambyses II, who kept the murder a secret. Patizithes, Magian custodian of Cambyses’ palace, deposed Cambyses (while he campaigned in Egypt). Patizithes put forward his brother Guamata, to impersonate Smerdis, and proclaimed him king. After a reign of seven months Darius I slew the pretender. |
527/5268 | Sabbatic Year. This was the first Sabbatic year in the New Cycle. | ||
Darius I (the Great) (522-486] | Accession | 522/521 | Darius I, son of Hystaspes of the Achaemenid dynasty, took the throne in a coup d’état. |
1st | 521/0 | ||
2nd | 520/519 | Sabbatic Year. Haggai and Zechariah prophesize. | |
520/19 | Darius issued a decree that the rebuilding of the Temple should continue without interference (Ezra 6:6-12). | ||
6th | 516 | The Jews finished construction of the Temple (Ezra 6:13-15). | |
513/512 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
506/507 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
499/498 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
492/491 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
Xerxes (Ahasuerus) (486-464) | Accession | 486/5 | |
485/484 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
7th | 479/480 | Esther made queen. | |
13th | 473 | Jews delivered from death. | |
471/470 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
464/463 | Sabbatic Year. | ||
Artaxerxes I (465-423) | Accession | 465/464 | Artabanus, a courtier, murdered Xerxes and Artaxerxes I ascended the throne after Tishri 1 suggesting the traditional date of the murder was in December 464 or following a short interregnum if his death was before Tishri 1. |
1 | 464/463 | Sabbatic Year. | |
7 | 458/457 | In the spring of 457 BCE, after acquiring the consent of Artaxerxes, Ezra and his party left on the four month, 1000-mile journey to Jerusalem, with royal authorization to beautify the Temple and intensify its worship system (Ezra 7:9-26). This was consistent with the original decree permitting the Jews to rebuild the temple as issued by Cyrus (Ezra 1:1-2). Artaxerxes sent articles for the service of the temple and whatever more needed for the house of God was to be paid for from the king’s treasury. There was no authorization to rebuild the city. Presumably Ezra and his party left after the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread and, as observant Jews, stopped along the way for Sabbaths and Pentecost (shavuot) which would place their arrival in mid-July 457 BCE. | |
8 | 457/456 | Sabbatic Year. Without royal authorization Jerusalem’s Jews attempted to rebuild the city including “finishing the walls and repairing the foundations” (Ezra 4:12). Learning of the matter, Artaxerxes I put a halt to the unauthorized rebuilding, forbidding any rebuilding of Jerusalem until he issued a formal decree authorizing it, and forcibly destroyed the recently rebuilt walls (Ezra 4:21-22); (Yamauchi, 1988, p. 634). | |
15 | 450/449 | Sabbatic Year. | |
20 | 445/444 | In the month of Chislev (Nov./Dec.) 445 BCE Nehemiah learned of the difficulty of Jewish life in the desolation of Jerusalem. About three months later in the month of Nisan 444 BCE, he appeared before Artaxerxes as the cup bearer visibly troubled over the wall of Jerusalem being in ruin and the gates destroyed. Nehemiah asks Artaxerxes, “I request that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it” (Nehemiah 2:1-5). Artaxerxes issued a royal decree but only authorized the rebuilding of the walls (Nehemiah 2:1-5). Nehemiah, commissioned as governor of the new province now separate from Samaria, arrived in Jerusalem on Av 1 (Nehemiah 1:1; 2:1; 5:14). | |
21 | 444/443 | On the Feast of Trumpets (Tishri 1, 3318 AM; Sat., Sept. 26, 444 BCE), Ezra, with Nehemiah present, read to the people gathered at the square in front of the Water Gate in Jerusalem, from “the book of the law of Moses” in a public covenant‑renewal ceremony (Nehemiah 8:1-2). Following the Feast of Tabernacles (Tishri 15-21) and the Last Great Day (Tishri 22, the 8th day), on Tishri 24, 3318 AM (Mon., Oct. 19, 444 BCE), the governor, all classes of leadership and the people (represented by their elders) agreed to “a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law and “forgo the crops of the seventh year and every debt” (Nehemiah 10:14, 29-31 NASB). The inference is they committed to observe the Sabbatic year which was to come in the fall of 443 BCE. | |
22 | 443/442 | Sabbatic Year. | |
29 | 436/435 | Sabbatic year. The 2nd Jubilee began Tishri 10, 3326 AM (Oct. 7, 436) in the New Cycle. | |
32 | 433/432 | End of Nehemiah’s first term as governor. After a 12-year stay Nehemiah left Jerusalem and returned, a four-month trip, to the capital Shushan (Nehemiah 5:14; 13:6). | |
36 | 429/428 | Sabbatic year. | |
41 | 424/423 | Artaxerxes I died at Susa of natural causes in 424 BCE. | |
Xerxes II and Secydianus or Sogdianus (424-423) | |||
Darius II (423-405/4) | 423/422 | ||
422/421 | Sabbatic year. | ||
415/414 | Sabbatic year. | ||
408/407 | Sabbatic year. | ||
Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8 | 405/404 | ||
401/400 | Sabbatic year. | ||
394/393 | Sabbatic year. | ||
387 | Sabbatic year. The 3rd Jubilee began Tishri 10, 3275 AM (Oct. 1, 487) in the New Cycle. | ||
380 | Sabbatic year. | ||
373 | Sabbatic year. | ||
366 | Sabbatic year. | ||
Artaxerxes III [359/8-388/7] | 359/358 | Sabbatic year. | |
352/351 | Sabbatic year. | ||
345/344 | Sabbatic year. | ||
338/337 | Sabbatic year. The 4th Jubilee began Tishri 10, 3424 AM (Oct. 4, 338) in the New Cycle. Philip II of Macedon formed the League of Corinth for the purpose of liberating Greek cities under Achaemenid rule. | ||
Darius III Codomannus (336/335-331) | Accession | 337/336 | |
1 | 336/335 | ||
2 | 335/334 | i | |
6 | 331/330 | Sabbatic year. In 331 BCE, at the Battle of Gaugamela (sometimes called the Battle of Arabella), the defeat of the Medio-Persians by Alexander the Great and his military on October 1, 331 BCE effectively divided the Achaemenid Empire into two parts – East and West. In January 330 BCE, Alexander reached Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, which he took in the spring or summer of 330 BCE and the Empire collapsed. Before Alexander captured Darius, his kinsman Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, killed him. This year marked 390 years from the completion of the Israelite deportation to Assyria by Tishri 1, 3043 AM (Sept. 6, 719 BCE) to the overthrow of the Medes and establishment of Macedonian control by the end of the 390th year on Elul 29, 3431 AM (Sept. 25, 330 BCE). | |
330/329 | First year of freedom of the northern tribes of Israel, from their 390 years of captivity (Ezekiel 4:5), began Tishri 1, 3432 AM (Sept. 26, 330 BCE). Ezekiel 4:5 |
Recent Comments